This Week at Our House #16

1. One neat thing about this weekly blog is I know exactly how many weeks we are into the year. John is still unemployed, but his company paid us for the second half of March this week. That has been a huge blessing, and will help get us through the rest of April.
2. I am sure thankful for spring, the warmer weather, the pretty flowers growing and all. I've spent much of this week pondering Easter and the last week of Christ's life. It has been helping me to "live in gratitude" a little better as President Uchdorf counseled in conference two weeks ago. Easter was nice today. The kids are sick, but Grandma funded plenty of candy for an Easter Egg hunt and that made a huge difference for the children. We have also experienced a few other tender mercies. We were able to get the medicine Ruth needed for $50 instead of $90 and Target's candy was on a good sale and we ended up saving $18.
3. Ruth spent the first half of the week quite ill. I took her to the doctor's on Tuesday. Nothing was determined then, but the doctor was really quite worried. On Wednesday, some lab results came in and we found out that Ruth had a kidney infection. She is doing much, much better. She will have a lot of make-up work. It's hard to miss school when you are in high school.
4. Kate was sick with a very bad cold and missed school on and off. She is finally feeling better, but will still have some make-up work to do. Kate helped a lot with preparing and setting up the Easter egg hunt for the little kids. She is also my right hand man when it comes to keeping Easter centered on Christ. I really appreciate her good example.
5. Johnny was a little sick with a cold until Thursday night when he came down with a fever and a bad cough. He is still pretty miserable, though his fever seems to be gone. I do not think he enjoyed Easter much at all. He just wasn't feeling well enough.
6. Adam got sick and stayed home from school on Thursday and Friday. Though his version of this illness seems to be more stomach based than cold symptoms. He LOVED the Easter Egg hunt and knew all about the Easter Lessons we had and seemed to quite enjoy his Easter holiday.
7. Rachel has been the kid with the least amount of illness. She stayed home from school with a headache on Monday, but otherwise has been fine. Next to Adam, Rachel was the egg hunter champion this year. Rachel's baptism is coming up on May 3rd. She has been reading her scriptures everyday and is finally seeming to take at least half of our scriptural lessons a little more seriously. 
8. Anya was well until today on Easter, poor kid. She enjoyed the egg hunt and the Easter lesson and videos, but by the end of the day was feeling pretty crappy. However, she is looking forward to a day off from school even if it is a sick day.
9. Joseph had a very bad cough most of the week and a fever many of the days. I wanted Joseph to stay down because of his cough, so I did not give him any medicine for his fever. When his fever left (it's been on and off) he spent the week getting into everything or playing outside. I wonder if he is ever going to get out of the "get into everything" stage. It drives me nuts. He plays in the kitchen cupboards, he sneaks into the older kids rooms, he plays in the garage, he gets into the tools, he climbs up into every space, he plays in my closet and the storage closet. You would think by now he would have realized we are not hiding a treasure any where in the house.
10. Joshua had the fever and cough, but it did not keep him down much. He kept going and playing, and doing just like he always has. Josh didn't do too much egg hunting, but he did enjoy sitting and eating his candy.
11. Arwen was sick earlier in the week. She still has an awful runny nose, but seems to be doing much better. Arwen was really cute about the Easter egg hunt. She did not bother to try and find any eggs, but she sure loved getting an Easter basket with some candy just for her.
12. Baby Susan is now 31 weeks along. We are getting closer to the end with just over 2 months to go. Right now I am just looking forward to the end of the school year, then I will start cleaning things out and preparing to meet my new little daughter.

This Week's Pictures

Evidence of Kids

one of the harder Easter eggs to find

Resting on the floor because they had to get up early for the Easter egg hunt